Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said the banking inquiry will be completely independent of the Cabinet and asked Independent TD Stephen Donnelly to reconsider his decision to resign from the anticipated investigation.

Speaking in Lebanon today, where he is visiting Irish peacekeeping troops, Mr Kenny said the inquiry "does not operate to a mandate or direction or instruction from Government".

He also said Government members of the committee will be independent, after the Coalition decision to lift the whip on Fine Gael and Labour TDs and senators.

"Fine Gael members who attend on the committee have absolute freedom in the context of working with the committee as tho what they want to do. There is no whipped vote and it is for the committee, as an Oireachtas committee, to decide what terms of what terms of reference it wants to draw up, who it should interview, how far that should go, what are the areas they need to explore and this is a very important committee and I would say to everybody that they should focus on the substance of this because there is no party political politics in this.

“There is no direction from government.”

He also said he hoped Mr Donnelly, a Wicklow TD, might reconsider his decision to quit, as explained in a newspaper article yesterday.

“I think his article was written on the assumption the Government was going to require that the committee would work to a particular Government mandate. That is patently not true so in that sense, given the fact that the committee needs good people, perhaps Deputy Donnelly might reconsider his position.”

Mr Donnelly had a “lot to offer”, Mr Kenny added.